Shrieks and hoots greeted the announcement. Mulligan held up his hand for silence.
‘Compliments to the chef,’ he said, turning and giving a solemn bow in my direction.
More howls, and great applause. I returned to the crank handle, and Mulligan set to breaking up the rest of the chair. By the time he had got down to the seat, I had ground a tolerable amount, perhaps something more than a whole legful, and the pile of sawdust had grown to a dusty pyramid which covered half the platter.
He indicated that I stop grinding. With plate in one hand and spoon in the other, he shovelled the stuff into his mouth. He made as if to masticate for a moment, then put down the spoon and took a long draught from his glass of liquid. And swallowed. The audience chuckled, as if to say, Yes, yes, that was funny, you really did swallow a mouthful of the stuff. But he followed it with another mouthful, and then another, eating greedily, swilling it down with the sickly orange liquid, until nothing remained on the golden surface but a powdery film, turning the warm glow of the metal dull.
I recommenced grinding, and he, after refilling his glass, strolled amongst the tables in the hall, exaggerating, boasting, joking, until the next course was ready.
By the time he came to his fourth plateful, both his eating speed and the enthusiasm of his audience were on the point of waning. A true master eater, though, is not simply one who can swallow, but one who can make that swallowing an entertainment. So, he descended with his golden platter into the audience and offered some of the fare to a tall, elegant-looking gentleman near to hand. The man declined, but the one next to him dipped his tongue in, and through his expression alone confirmed that it was indeed no more nor less than sawdust. Another gallant offered to eat a whole spoonful and, attempting to follow the example of Mulligan, poured a full glass of port into his mouth to accompany the dust. He chewed and chomped, and with great industry tried to swallow the mixture, but to no avail; the whole lot came back out and was deposited into a large, white handkerchief which, curiously, he stuffed straight into his jacket pocket. Another, less sober individual thought he might upstage Mulligan’s comic performance, and took a pinch as if it were snuff, but succeeded only in half choking himself.
Then we had the evening’s tough. Permit me here to indulge in a little amateur psychology. I have, over the years, observed many gatherings of men (women, for some reason, are seldom to be found in great numbers at these events), and it is unquestionably the case that whenever groups of men congregate there is a tendency for one man to emerge as the tough, the hard type. Unlike the playground tough-boy, the adult version is seldom the leader of the group, and never at the centre of things. He may in fact say and do very little. Often he is neither the richest nor the most powerful; neither the most respected nor the most heroic; he is in fact more often than not the dullest, and his presence is only ever really valued if trouble erupts and reliable fists are needed. Anyway, in the company of Mulligan, even in sight of him, the local tough would often disappear from view completely, receding further than normal into the anonymity of the group. However, over the course of an evening, these types invariably sought some means of proving themselves in face of a seemingly harder, bigger, greater man. Let us say that in this respect Mulligan, quite without wishing it, constituted an unfortunate stimulus-to-act for these men.
On this occasion the fellow in question was a tall, grim-looking thug in his mid-fifties, not unlike Mulligan in build, but a degree or two smaller in all departments. A scowl had adorned his face all evening and now, just as Mulligan made to return to the stage, this man stood up, to a variety of rumblings, mutterings, and not a few sit down!s. But he stood firm, a pudding spoon at the ready, held down at his thigh, inadvertently, I believe, although it looked for all the world like a deholstered pistol. He stared straight at the platter.
Mulligan was not one for humiliating people, no matter how disagreeable they were, but this chap had certainly set himself up for a rather large slice of humble pie, although in this case of a rather unusual recipe. Mulligan had no desire to crush the poor man’s infamy, yet what could be done? He marched over with the golden plate and, rather obviously half filling his spoon, offered it to the new challenger. Not to be put off with insults, the man brushed Mulligan’s spoon aside and grabbed the platter, spilling a good deal of dust down his suit in the process. He dug his own spoon into the pile and brought it up to his mouth, spilling about half its load. Having tipped what remained into his mouth, he repeated the operation two more times, both times resulting in significant spillage, although at least proving beyond doubt that his mouth was indeed full. After returning the gold plate to Mulligan, he strode over to the stage, slowly and with his chest out in front, and took a long draught from the Egyptian jug. The liquid ran down his chin, staining his collar a salmon pink. When he could absorb no more liquid, he returned to his table, stood face to face with Mulligan and swallowed. Three times. After a period in which his hard face turned red, and then white, he took up his glass of port and drank that too.
Mulligan led the tumultuous applause. With the platter held out in front of him, he shook the man’s hand vigorously, managing to spill a good cupful more dust down the front of the chap’s jacket without anyone noticing. Then, more as a joke than anything, he offered the plate again. Somewhat gingerly, Tough then helped himself to a more modest spoonful. To cheers all around, he slugged down someone else’s wine greedily and, after another long and protracted swallowing, sat down, bringing his diverting cameo to a close. However, his contribution to the evening’s entertainment really only ended some twenty minutes later as he was dragged out of the hall, groaning the word mother.
Then we were down to the seat. Somehow I didn’t expect him to eat it, horsehair, brass tacks and all. But in it went, Mulligan tearing bits of cloth and stuffing from the main structure and dropping them into the funnel. The grinding became easier, and even the brass tacks, which were the very final items to go in, seemed to cause no problems.
As soon as the last remains of the seat had disappeared down the funnel, Mulligan made a furtive adjustment to The Machine and whispered: ‘Carry on turning!’
He had cut off the supply, with a good deal of the chair still inside the grinder. Within seconds no more of the fine, wispy grounds of horsehair and velvet accumulated on the gold plate. Nevertheless, I continued cranking, and he made an elaborate pretence of ensuring that everything had been minced up, and that the last crumbs of chair were ready to eat.
Whilst munching them down he delivered some amusing observations on the nature of horsehair, it being but inches away from real meat etc., and once or twice, in great pain, removed a mangled brass tack from his mouth, holding his jaw in agony, and then offering it to a nearby member of the audience. Of course, the tacks from the chair were all by now ground down to a fine powder, or, indeed, were still inside The Machine. The mangled ones were from a supply of such items secreted in his jacket.
As the last spoonfuls of chair went in and, with much apparent effort, went down, I became alarmed at the great man’s obvious discomfort; he walked ponderously, and held very still whilst, with a slow, tense concentration, he attempted to swallow. One felt that he was bunged up solid with sodden dust, and that each new mouthful found its way no further down than the back of the throat, where it lodged itself, tickling the uvula and impeding the flow of his breath. By this point his stomach was so distended that he appeared to be in constant danger of toppling forward; I am convinced that, for one horrific moment, every person watching believed that Mulligan was about to perish there on the stage, as his huge bulk ground to a final halt. The sawdust, it seemed, had set firm inside him.
And there he remained, utterly still, his eyelids drooping heavily like those of a man passing quietly from drunkenness to unconsciousness. Finally, his head turning painfully slowly towards the silent ranks of dinner suits, he said, in a quite unconcerned manner: ‘I think I need a drink.’
After innumerable pats on the back, and calls of Bravo! and Good show! he finally opted for a place next to the small, tubby man, who grinned like a delighted child. He accepted a glass of brandy, and nibbled at the few petits fours which were left, in evident high spirits and answering the questions thrown at him with the best humour he could: Have you ever eaten a horse? (‘Yes, but I made sure it was a filly!’) What about an umbrella?